One thing that has changed, at least in NYC, is that the rate of violent crime has gone way down. Maybe it's the result of modern data-driven police methods; but I think the enormity of the terrorist act against the city caused something of a psychic shift in the level of passion that people have for living. It knocked the wind out of the city. It made people's ardor for anything trivial. It was the triumph of nihilism over spirit. And I think New York will never get it back completely.

There was a big to-do in the "feminism" world a while back about how young women are rejecting calling themselves femnists (the new Yahoo CEO refused to call herself one, for example).

I keep thinking that I should start a blog or a tumblr or something collecting all the reasons why ambitious and intelligent young women wouldn't want to be associated with what is commonly called feminism. For example, Naomi Wolf and her stupid vagina book.

I recall at the time Bush said things that seemed to discourage change..

He said things like... go and buy things... to the incredulous dismay of some.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, for instance, was on Meet the Press recounting how FDR prepared the country and asked for sacrifice... sacrifice.

At the time I didn't translate what she was saying the way I do today... by sacrifice she meant raise taxes and grow the government.. and unfortunately, the growth in government did come, in the name of a behemoth called Home Land Security.

Speaking of polls, I see a lot of hyperventilating about the Obama/Romney polls in the news/blogosphere. Some people are saying that the polls showing Obama ahead are disinformation being spread by the media/Obama complex. I don't get how that helps them. When I hear that Obama is ahead, it makes me want to go out and campaign for Romney. Doesn't it make the underdog want to try harder?

From that picture, it looks like, if you straggle, you may fall in a hole.

sydney said...

Speaking of polls, I see a lot of hyperventilating about the Obama/Romney polls in the news/blogosphere. Some people are saying that the polls showing Obama ahead are disinformation being spread by the media/Obama complex. I don't get how that helps them. When I hear that Obama is ahead, it makes me want to go out and campaign for Romney. Doesn't it make the underdog want to try harder?

Most of the polls are skewed toward the Demos, so you have to look under the hood.

By "sacrifice," what people mean is that you should do what they they wanted you to do all along. When Dems said it after 9/11, they meant pay more in taxes.

This is not unlike the 2009 stimulus bill, where what they deemed as stimulative happened to be what they wanted to spend taxpayer money on all along, for the previous 10 or 15 years, but couldn't get through.

They really laced into GWB for saying "go shopping" after 9/11, which on the face of it does sound silly and selfish. But anyone with a 6th grade understanding of the economy would realize why he said that, and why it wasn't silly and selfish. But they still repeat this as a criticism on MSNBC and other less than reputable places to this day.

Scott - I left the city before 9/11 and it never fails to stun me that after 9/11 there has been an almost furious energy applied to reclaiming marginal neighborhoods in both Manhattan and the outer boroughs. Williamsburg is the outstanding example in Brooklyn, followed by Greenpoint and even a wreck like Bushwick. In Manhattan the building of the Hi-Line has reopened what was once a warehouse district on the westside and the Hi-Line's terminus, the Meatpacking District, is now a world class tourist destination. There are plans to build an entire city in the west 30's over abandoned rail lines. In Queens Long Island City has been reclaimed. So I can't agree with you about New Yorkers lacking ardor. It makes no sense to me in that the city remains terribly vulnerable to muzzie terrorists but there's no arguing with the facts on the ground.

I got a ride home from town with my son. It was early enough that I took a nap.

I had a dream.

Obama was in it. We were going somewhere to find someone but on the way we stopped at some schools. So at the first school I quick set up an appearance for Obama with the Air Force ROTC and it went great. After it was over I realized I never told the Army ROTC about it so they missed the whole thing. Then we went to the next school and this was for younger kids. Obama did everything I told him to. We were having a great time and laughing. Dream-like, rainbow toe socks were involved. I started to realize that everyone was probably going to be surprised that I wasn't going to vote for him. Right before I woke up I told him. He was mad.

So far I have 12 rather interesting vintage bottles and the most interesting yet to come so I think that's enough for now, although at the car wash I passed recycling bins and there was a Perrier bottle on top I almost reached in and took that but it has a flat bottom, but I can deal with a flat bottom. Marbles, like bubbles.

Imagine an upside down Perrier bottle with five or so little glass fish swimming around it in a circle.

If Romney wins in November, I had an idea for his coronation song. He could stop pretending not to be Mormon and bring out Donny Osmond who could sing the finale of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat. The amazing loveliness of Osmond's voice cannot be denied. It would be the dawn of a new innocence in America: something we've awaited for decades, as Osmond refused every trashy offer to play druggies and pimps for cheap laughs and remained true to his principles. I love his voice in this song. (It corresponds with the ending of Genesis which is also the beginning of the promise of God to Israel, meaning that Romney will grant that country safe passage, which Obama would not do?)

I've felt a need to connect with a nearby mechanic, one that I can walk home from, and there is one nearby but I've been afraid to go in there and I have avoided the place until today.

It is small and it is tucked in a triangle of two busy streets. The access looks tight, and it's within the so-called Golden Triangle surrounded by tall posh apartments, so probably not inexpensive.

I had to make an appointment!

Turns out, the place was kind of quiet, two people but I only saw the owner who took a shine in a way that was unusual and he was exceeding receptive to mild joking around. I told him I washed the truck before I brought it in, which was true, but I added, so that you guys wouldn't get your hands dirty. Because that wouldn't do.

I live right up the hill, When you call, I'll put on skates and roll straight down.

Is 15% tip customary?

Droll, I know that, but the thing is, he thought all that was hilarious and was eager to engage.

Anyway, much good jesting and joking around followed that, as someone happy to make new friends. Now my truck is all winterized and all caught up and it runs great plus I have a totally new attitude about that place.

So let me get this straight, we’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which puportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and and financed by a country that’s broke. So, what the *blank* could possibly go wrong?

We watched The Conspirator for the first time the other night. It is now free with Amazon Prime Video.

Anyhow, I liked it. Pretty slow-paced, mostly courtroom drama, set in 1865. Covers the trial of the conspirators in Lincoln's assassination. Mostly focusing on the defense of Mary Surrat.

Very thoughtful and interesting. No doubt the timing and the producer being Robert Redford suggests more political intent for our present day, but it's pretty low key with that and tells a good story. The ending certainly suggests that the political and legal issues involved with terror are not so straightforward.

I'd never heard of the movie until it showed up on a list of new movies on Amazon.

The DNC convention provided some very revealing video of the attendees. There was the one of people calling for the banning or limiting of corporate profit, and then the John Stewart one of people explaining the inclusiveness of the Democratic party. That one is hilarious, especially the line by one guy who explains that his tolerance would prevent him from ever "calling a redneck a name." And another guy explains that the dems welcome everyone, "except white males". Wonderful stuff.

Synova, I have Air Force dreams two or three times a week. I dream I am in the wrong uniform or in the wrong place. I have been out of the Air Force since 94. I also have dreams in which I can't remember where my next class is. I have been out of graduate school since 2004. Every time I wake up, it is a relief.

I have a link for Synova; I recall promising to send it when it was finished the last time that we talked religion here. It may be of interest to Catholic Althousians, but most of you will find it intolerably boring "inside baseball." Anyway, sorry to be absent lately; everything is busy.

""So let me get this straight, we’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and and financed by a country that’s broke. So, what the *blank* could possibly go wrong?"

This idiocy, utterly predictable (didn't any of you Obama voters realize "health care reform" was Job 1 under an Obama presidency?), equally exposes the foolishness of voting for Obama (thinking that voting for Obama would force him and the Dems to take responsibility in the WOT - really?! - was a facile delusion), could have been avoided had any appreciable amount of the 53% who voted for this affirmative action hire simply thought things through.

Surrendering the nation's health care system to the federal government for "improvements" was highly irresponsible (does anyone really think [outside of the trolls] Medicare and Medicaid more efficient, more effective, less costly than private insurance?] and, in the end, indefensible (How many here (other than Pogo, of course) know what the contrast in utilization rates are between private pay and public subsidized-pay care is?

Care to guess?

So, our idiot president, and moron Senate Majority Leader and retarded Speaker (at the the time) and all those idiots who voted for Obama gave us "health care reform" that will, in expanding coverage, crash the system for lack of new providers. Any pretense, hope, aspiration that somehow, someway, care would "improve" or costs would "reduce" under such a system, by comparison, makes an eight year old child believing in Santa Claus appear to be the pinnacle of intelligence, rationality and wisdom.